Portfolio: Angela Bacon-Kidwell - Home By Nightfall

photo-eye GalleryPortfolio: Angela Bacon-Kidwell's Home By Nightfall
photo-eye is pleased to introduce Home By Nightfall, a new portfolio of atmospheric black and white images by Angela Bacon-Kidwell, to the Photographer’s Showcase. We asked Bacon-Kidwell to tell us, in her own words, how she came to photography as an artistic practice, and how the dramatic and enigmatic Home By Nightfall series came to be.

photo-eye is pleased to introduce Home By Nightfall, a new portfolio of atmospheric black and white images by Angela Bacon-Kidwell, to the Photographer’s Showcase. Bacon-Kidwell photographs a lone road surrounded by stretches of a seemingly infinite smokey landscape bathed in gausy light. Ultimately speaking of transition and journey, a young boy, the series' only character, grapples with the environment — simultaneously resisting and embracing its cold and tumultuous demeanor. Almost narrative at times, Bacon-Kidwell plants us firmly at the road's center, lending a sensation of infinite space, and leaving the viewer to decide whether each scene describes past events or future obstacles. We asked Bacon-Kidwell to tell us, in her own words, how she came to photography as an artistic practice, and how the dramatic and enigmatic Home By Nightfall series came to be.

"I guess it is safe to say that I’m a user. I use art to navigate down the road of change. I have long taken the injunction to 'find yourself' especially to heart, and have spent years in diverse places, roles, and pre-occupations attempting to comply. In 1994, I began a demanding management position in the employment industry. Success came quickly as ambition grew, but my psyche was disturbed. The small quiet places where demons of my past lived were screaming for attention. I began to have flashbacks, which were remembrances of past disturbing events. The duality of obsessive career building and unresolved childhood sexual abuse left me with unimaginable internal turmoil. I began to search for outlets for this confusion and was inspired to paint as a means of expressing these painful memories. This was the first step in a long journey. Standing before a canvas for the first time was empowering. I felt I was in control and could do no wrong. During the years I was healing through my art the path became clear. To paint was to expose, in the brightness of the day, the hidden horrors of my past. The exposure would cleanse troubled and angry places in my mind. Hundreds of paintings and ten years later I realized that this was a healing path for my past, present and future. I made the decision to leave the business world and study art.

I graduated in 2005 with a BFA in Painting and Photography. That same year my first and only child was born. His birth was the catalyst for leaving the solitude of the studio and committing myself to a medium that could accompany the two of us. I set out to create stories or waking dreams that would ultimately pose the question: Could all my experiences that included the flight or fight response, fear, intuition, wonder, dreams and playfulness all dance together in one image. I had no idea where I was headed artistically and no master plan where I was going professionally when I took to the road with camera and baby in tow.

"This work, Home by Nightfall, started in September of 2012. My father, my biggest supporter, my constant motivator, was unexpectedly diagnosed with lung cancer. He and I lived many miles apart but we both shared a need for solitude and long country drives were a remedy to the chaos in our lives. We would often talk on our cellphones during this time. The work did not start out as a series but more a filtering of emotions. Without knowing what I was doing I started to photograph the dust as I drove; then came the birds, then the stars. Quickly the metaphors became apparent to me. Dust became a metaphor for the mass growing in his lungs, the murmurations of starlings contrast to the blustering tinnitus in his ears, and the boy, my son, represents a life once had.

"Pain and grief is boring, confusing and indulgent. It’s like trying to answer the questions: How many miles in life? What is the shape of the color grey? When does an echo become a whole? Some answers are unknown.

These are exactly the questions I was visually attempting to represent in this work. During this time of evening drives I was creating in parallel with the conversations I would have with my Dad. The work became action and I became the director of this landscape. I would create the dust by driving fast on the dirt roads and jumping out of the car to capture it. The birds were easy to manipulate (a quick hit of my car horn) and they would disperse (I know, crazy). Photographing through the windshield created texture and stars.

The work is an internal landscape of the emotions and thoughts surrounding the years my father was ill. In the final image, 'a faithful surrender' I attempt visually to articulate the complete acceptance of his death with arms wide open ready to surrender his fate."—Angela Bacon-Kidwell